25,000 hectares of crops have been affected by Hurricane Patricia after it struck the coast of Jalisco just after 6:00pm Friday. More than 6,000 hectares of crops had suffered damages but much of that will be covered by insurance. Wind, rain and overflowing rivers have damaged 8,280 hectares of banana, corn and papaya crops in Jalisco, said the state’s Social Development Secretariat, putting 5,000 people out of work. In Michoacán, 10,000 hectares of crops are believed damaged, mostly banana and papaya. Although Hurricane Patricia was forecast to have the potential to inflict catastrophic damage, its effects did not live up to that billing. However, for communities dependent on agriculture, such as the Michoacán municipality of Coahuayana, the outcome is indeed being called a catastrophe. Here, 5,600 hectares of banana plantations have been affected, and 1,200 hectares of papaya destroyed. On top of that, there was damage to mango, tamarind, guanabana and corn crops. “This means that it’s the biggest agricultural catastrophe in the history of the municipality,” said Mayor Porfirio Mendoza, noting that 4,000 families have lost their harvest this year. Although the Mexican government has been credited with preventing serious damage through timely alerts to populations that could be affected by the hurricane, that wasn’t the case in Arroyo Seco, a small community in the municipality of La Huerta, Jalisco. González recalled that Hurricane Jova in 2011, which made landfall in the same area as a Category 2 storm, had hit them hard, but Patricia felt three times worse. However, the effects of Jova on the region were far more severe. Source - http://mexiconewsdaily.com